[RFI] Swedish Amateurs Affected by Solar Panel RFI

[Tony]

All:

Interesting article below about solar panel RFI in Sweden. Not a good 
outlook for hams if this trend continues.

Tony -K2MO


  Interference from solar panel installations

Sweden's national amateur radio society,*SSA*, reports on work to 
identify and resolve the radio interference that is caused by solar 
panel installations

A translation of their post says:

Together with the Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Electricity Safety 
Authority has for some time been reviewing solar installations around 
the country. We wrote about this in December last year here on our site.

The Swedish Electric Safety Authority finds that it is mainly 
installations with so-called optimizers that cause radio interference. 
Some plants, on the other hand, have very good EMC properties, so you 
should not categorically accuse photovoltaic systems of interfering, 
says the Swedish ESA.

Radio amateurs in the Kungsbacka area have reported disturbances that 
they believe come from installations with solar panels and the Swedish 
Electric Safety Authority has recently been there and made measurements. 
The authority is happy to receive more reports of radio interference 
that may be due to installations with solar panels. This, in contrast to 
interference in general and which may conceivably come from radio 
broadcasts, you must report to PTS.

According to ITU radio regulations , amateur radio is not considered to 
be "safety service", which is why you cannot claim interference free in 
all situations. Occasional strong disturbances may also be tolerated, 
whereas it is more serious if entire frequency ranges are totally extinct.

In order to look after the neighbor it is always good to communicate 
with the neighbor before a notification. Therefore, if you suspect a 
specific installation, you should first ask the neighbor to shut down 
your plant to confirm the suspicions.

When reporting a suspected malfunction from a photovoltaic installation 
to the ESA, it should be detailed. Describe whether the disturbance is 
continuous or how it occurs intermittently. Please attach audio file and 
pictures from your frequency display. State where and when the 
observations were made and preferably a little about your equipment. Do 
you think you know where the source of the disturbance is located and 
who it is that has it, you can also specify this. Also, keep in mind 
that everything you write to an authority becomes public action. Send 
your application to:registrator at elsakerhetsverket.se 
<mailto:registrator at elsakerhetsverket.se>
*/
SM6ZEM Hans-Christian/*

Source SSAhttps://tinyurl.com/SwedenSSA